Giving your Lab a bath

Im just curious, how often do you give you Lab a bath, and how in the world do you trim those nails! LOL...That one Im not looking forward to. As far as the baths, she has already had one and didnt do too badly with it.

I get my two bathed once a year - not really good for a dogs fur, but necessary for my nose. As for the nails, I would clip the dew claws every few weeks, but the nails that be on the ground never need clipped as they wear down naturally.

Interests:Warm sunny days at the beach, Cooking, Gardening (poor plants-I have a black thumb to go w/my black lab), being with friends & sharing a good meal and a good bottle of wine...

Posted 23 February 2009 - 03:00 PM

My boy is an inside dog and he gets baths about 4 or 5 times a year. As for the nails I bought a Pedi-cure Nail trimmer. It was a great investment. It is basically an attachment for a Dremel tool. It is very easy to use and works great. If you already have a dremel tool you can just buy the trimmer attachment.

My boy is an inside dog and he gets baths about 4 or 5 times a year. As for the nails I bought a Pedi-cure Nail trimmer. It was a great investment. It is basically an attachment for a Dremel tool. It is very easy to use and works great. If you already have a dremel tool you can just buy the trimmer attachment.

As we have only had Brodie a little over a month and he had a bath before being shipped up to us, we haven't had the need to bath him yet. But I'm curious, If labs should only be washed @ 3 times a year, how do you control the "dog" smell to them? Brodie is pretty clean and you can't walk into our house and say "oh, you can tell they have a dog from the smell" but when we're playing with him and up close, you can definately start to notice a dog smell to him. Not bad yet but just curious if there is a dry bath or something you can use between normal bathing to keep the dog smell down?

We usually give Jed a bath/shower 1-2 times a year. During the warm summer days he generally spends a great deal of time swimming in fresh river water (his favorite passtime). He prefers swimming to being bathed because like most dogs i don't think he cares too much for the smell of the shampoo we all use to make our furbabies smell good. Yes it is true, bathing your lab too often is not recommended, due to possible dry and flaky skin conditions, so for the those times when jed starts smelling "doggy" I give him a quick wipe down with a doggy wet wipe ( Jumbo Ear wipes), you can use them for both ears and just for getting rid of that doggy smell. It has a nice citrusy smell, which helps a lot. As for trimming nails I don't need to worry about that because we excercise Jed enough to keep his claws trimmed.

We wash our labs in a shower stall with one of those hand massage shower sprayers. We have high water pressure here so it works very well. We wash them when they get stinky or dusty. About every three months. We use a tearless puppy shampoo on them.

We clip their nails monthly. We don't use those small silver nail clippers that you often see vets using. Those tend to break the nails. They are ok for little dogs with thin little nails but not for labs. We use a larger set of clippers that look more like pliers or wire cutters. They trim the nail very neatly and the dogs don't seem to mind them much at all.

As we have only had Brodie a little over a month and he had a bath before being shipped up to us, we haven't had the need to bath him yet. But I'm curious, If labs should only be washed @ 3 times a year, how do you control the "dog" smell to them? Brodie is pretty clean and you can't walk into our house and say "oh, you can tell they have a dog from the smell" but when we're playing with him and up close, you can definately start to notice a dog smell to him. Not bad yet but just curious if there is a dry bath or something you can use between normal bathing to keep the dog smell down?

The Pedi-Cure nail trimmer, does it make a lot of noise? I would have to get a Dremel tool, so I don't know how loud it is. Pluto goes bananas when there are loud noise. He hides if I try to run the vacuum when he is in.

Wow, you guys only bathe your dogs a few times a year? Sawyer gets bathed pretty much once a month, sometimes more if he's particularly nasty after a hike. After a few weeks without a bath he gets greasy and is generally unpleasant to be near. Is this too much?

As for nails, i pretty much have to take him to the vet to to Petsmart and have them do it. That way i can hold his wiggly butt down and they can do the trimming.

The ear wipes black_knight mentioned are interesting because Sawyer's ears are gross.

Interests:Warm sunny days at the beach, Cooking, Gardening (poor plants-I have a black thumb to go w/my black lab), being with friends & sharing a good meal and a good bottle of wine...

Posted 11 March 2009 - 01:58 PM

[quote name='partlablady' date='Mar 6 2009, 09:25 PM' post='12252']
The Pedi-Cure nail trimmer, does it make a lot of noise?

The Pet-i-cure is not particularly loud but it does make a humm sound. No where near as loud as a vaccuum cleaner. It is sold either electric model, around $75 or battery model around $20. On the website you can order just the nail grooming head if you have a Dremel.

I bathe mine when he stinks, he plays outside a lot and he gets sticky and smelly, i use shampoo i get from the vet office because its soapless. He hates getting a bath but he just stands there in the bath tub without anyone holding him

A lot of times the doggy smell you may have on your dog can come from dead hair in their coat. We brush our dogs every other day with a wide tooth grooming comb. I find brushes don't work very well on labs. We brush their coat the "right way" (with the grain) to get everything settled then we do a total reverse (against the grain) comb to loosen all the dead hair. Finally a finishing brush in the right direction(with the grain) makes them all pretty again.

No more doggy smell.

The food you feed them could also make them smell. I have heard people who feed the RAW diet say that their dog no longer has any smell once established on that diet.